Self publishing tips: Don’t…
My self publishing experience could be considered limited, because Cut Limbo was only published in late December and that was only the soft launch, the BIG launch is happening in a month or two, however, I have been writing for many years!
Here’s a few things you should NOT do when self publishing or devoting lots of time to writing anything, this includes blog posts, articles, short stories, novels, screenplays, scripts, poems and last but not least, songs.
I’ve tried most of the above, some results have been significantly more successful than others, but I still haven’t earned much and I’ve been at it for ages. I do it because I enjoy it, if you don’t like writing, please don’t do it, take up jogging or stamp collecting instead.
1. Don’t give up your day job, especially if anyone depends on your current income, even if it’s just a dog or a fish. I gave up an excellent day job (read career) back in 1988 to write my 1st novel and it was a very silly move. Writing is great, it can be great fun, it can be very rewarding and on many levels, it is very romantic, but for most writers, the pay generally sucks!
Don’t try and make people laugh with your writing…
Don’t write what you think, or hope, people will laugh at if you are writing or attempting to write anything humourous. If you are writing comedy of any kind, write what makes you laugh and don’t, please don’t, write jokes, they just won’t work unless you’re a stand up comedian. Very few novels can successfully carry more than one or two actual jokes…
Don’t forget to make your characters interesting! People are what they do and you don’t have to spell it all out for the reader, remember that with all characters, actions speak louder than words. So many writers have a great and original story, an exciting, fast moving plot, but flat and boring and easily forgettable characters. Please don’t make your cop a drunk with a failing marriage, please don’t make your teenager fat or spotty with divorced or divorcing parents and don’t make your hero, tall, dark and handsome. You can if you really want to, if you simply have to, but make them more than that too, make them different, make them stand out and make them memorable.
Don’t add song lyrics into your novel, it’ll cost you a fortune in royalties. Yes, of course you can mention that a song is playing, but don’t write the actual lyrics into the narrative, it could cost you a fortune. Cut Limbo has 19 classic punk rock songs, but none of the lyrics are in the actual novel. I think the fact that Cut Limbo has such a great soundtrack adds another dimension to the story, but it is no coincidence that Panky and Chris were both punks in their youth and that other characters have punk connections too! A country and western soundtrack just wouldn’t have been the same!
Don’t give up writing what you like, because it isn’t trendy. Don’t try and follow fashion, don’t write vampire or sci-fi or sado-masochist romance novels because they’re popular right now. That doesn’t mean you can’t write them, but write them because you love that genre, write because it’s what you really enjoy writing, not just because you think it’ll make you a popular or successful writer. Be honest to yourself, you’ll enjoy the writing more. My chosen genre is crime thriller or crime mystery, because that’s what I love read.
The fact that I chose to make Cut Limbo a satire is because my adventures whilst travelling the globe had shown me how bizarrely different the world is and how different cultures can have such different morals and beliefs. I had to say something about the modern world and its diversities, a lot of people still don’t travel much beyond the 2 week holiday in the sun, a lot of people only see the sanitized versions of the places they visit. The story of what happened at Schipol airport just had to be told.
These are just a few basic self publishing tips for fellow writers… I hope they help someone. As I say, I’ve been at it for years and it’s all about practice, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting and reading as much as possible and as often a possible for inspiration.
I am still working on the new social media way of reading novels and as mentioned, although it’s not actually reinventing the Social Media wheel, it is a pretty new concept and I think it’ll be copied by a lot of other writers. So keep in touch and keep sharing the blog posts on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr and Facebook please.
